Deciduous twining shrubs, glabrous, branched, with imbricately scaly buds. Leaves, digitate with 3-5 leaflets and long petioles; leaflets emarginate at apex, entire. Inflorescence axillary racemes, monoecious with female flowers below and smaller male flowers above. Sepals 3. Stamens 6; anthers subsessile. Carpels 3-12, each ± ovoid-oblong developing into ovoid-oblong, fleshy follicles, opening along the ventral suture, with numerous ovules on several rows of placentae; seeds black, suborbicular.